a. Field of the Invention
This relates generally to an illumination system, and more particularly, to a lighting system for vehicles.
b. Description of the Related Art
To ensure road safety, design parameters for a vehicle headlamp, such as irradiance and luminous intensity distribution, should conform to specific headlamp standards. Besides, basic requirements such as energy saving and high luminous efficiency should be also met on constructing a headlamp.
Typically, light beams emitted from a light source, such as a halogen lamp, a metal-halide lamp or an LED, are not ready for use unless they are shaped to have a specific intensity profile intended for use in vehicle illumination. However, this may result in certain loss of luminous intensity. Further, conventional vehicle headlamps often provide a non-adjustable intensity profile and luminous intensity, where most of light are directed towards the front of a vehicle to reduce the luminous intensity of surrounding areas. Therefore, when pedestrians or animals quickly move from surrounding areas having low luminous intensity to the front of a vehicle, a driver may fail to timely deal with such emergency to cause an automobile accident. Therefore, it is important to provide a vehicle lighting system capable of dynamically controlling the irradiance and luminous intensity distribution in response to surrounding conditions to ensure safe driving.